Man Out Of Time
by I'vebeenLOKI'Dyetagain
Summary: Post-CA:TWS. Bucky can't live with himself after what he's done as the Winter Soldier, and for the second time, Steve is too late to save his best friend. Bucky's death destroys him, but he does his best to keep on living. He's Captain America, after all. But given the chance, Steve would do anything to save Bucky - even mess up the timestream of the universe.


**I... have no idea what this is. It was supposed to be just a short, depressing one-shot, but then it spiralled out of my control and ended up as a long one-shot with what might kind of count as a happy ending. **

**I really felt like writing something depressing, and I told my sister that I wanted to kill someone, and she was just like, "Why don't you write something where Bucky/Winter Soldier kills himself, and then Steve finds him after it's too late?" and I was just like "YES!" and then I started thinking about it and realizing that losing Bucky _again _would just absolutely _destroy _Steve, and that if Steve had _any _chance to save Bucky, he would jump to take it... **

**WARNING for suicide and dark thoughts. **

**And somehow all the Avengers got into this fic. I have NO idea how that happened. Somehow they all ended up living in Avengers tower... I guess what with Shield haven broken up and Nick Fury no longer in charge of the Avengers, the Avengers decided to stick together and form their own thing, since they're still needed to save the world and such.  
**

**Just humor me, okay? ;3 And, DISCLAIMER, I don't own these characters. This is purely for feels. **

* * *

Bucky stared down at his hands in a vicious loathing.

One of those hands made of bones and muscle and sinew, and calloused and scarred flesh, the other bright and metal and cold, cold, cold, not even human. And _they_ had done this to him—Hydra had turned him into this... this _weapon, _killed him and turned him into an mindless killing machine that obeyed their ever order without hesitation or question, its only thoughts how to best fulfill its mission.

The Soldier bit his tongue so hard his mouth was filled with the thick, warm tang of copper. He clenched his eyes tightly shut and shook his head vehemently as he balled his both his hands into fists, the fingernails of his right hand digging into his palms while his left hand felt nothing. His long brown hair fell oily and limp into his face.

His nightmare-blue eyes burned, but no tears trickled down his cheeks—crying was for humans, and he wasn't human anymore, not really. He was just a malfunctioning weapon that had killed its owners.

Hydra was gone now, he'd made sure of that, had taken all the dark joy he could get from destroying the people—the corporation—that had _done this_ to him.

But even all their blood on his hands couldn't dilute the blood of all those he'd killed under their command, couldn't change the fact that he'd tried to kill Steve—_goddammit, he'd nearly succeeded in killing Steve. He'd nearly killed him!_

And Steve...

The Soldier let out a whimper through his clenched jaw and bloody, gritted teeth, curling his fingers into his hair and yanking.

He was on his knees, sitting before the smoking remains of the last Hydra base, the main one that had been growing on an uncharted island in the Pacific. The heat from the flames pounded in waves against him, the smoke curling around him like a thick and swirling black fog, but he couldn't breathe in the destruction because of his mask, and it didn't sting his eyes behind their black goggles.

Whenever he looked in the mirror, he never saw a human. Never saw this, this _Bucky _that he had once been. There was just a machine, and the mask and goggles kept him from seeing the face of a ghost, the twisted features of a man who no longer existed. It was easier to wear the mask.

Easier not to see that face, not to be reminded off the person he'd been before he died, because it _hurt. _It hurt to know just what he'd lost.

For he was just a weapon that had given itself purpose by eradicating those who broke it. But now... now that mission was over. There was no more mission.

The Soldier was shaking, curled over so that his mask was nearly touching his knees, and his hair obscured all view, though it didn't matter anyway because his eyes were shut so tightly he couldn't see anything.

Couldn't see anything except all those innocent people he'd killed... the mothers, the children... so, so much blood, his vision was black and red and red so dark it was black.

Except for the bit of brightness that was _Steve. _And he could taste the apple pie that Steve's mother used to make, could see a skinny shrimp of a boy sitting in a chair at the old wood table and swinging his legs that were too short to touch the dusty floor. He could smell the gunfire and Steve's blood and sweat as he helped Bucky up from the ground after a grenade blast, and the two of them rushed back into battle. Could feel his metal fist hitting Steve's face again and again and again, could hear the naked emotion in Steve's voice when he said, "I will not fight you. You're my friend."

But he wasn't, not anymore... he'd nearly _killed _Steve.

And he knew that man was following him, had been following him every since he started his personal war against Hydra.

He'd made sure that Captain America was too far behind to catch him, because the Soldier couldn't die, not until he'd _annihilated _the ones who had done this to him.

For Captain America would surely kill him, would destroy him for letting Bucky die, for not fighting, and the Soldier couldn't stand to see those expressions of hurt and betrayal on Steve's face.

Because he hadn't fought enough to stay alive, and Bucky had died and the Winter Soldier had taken his place.

And the Soldier knew, intrinsically, that Steve would never let anyone, _anyone _get away with killing Bucky.

There was no going back, the Soldier knew. All he had were sharp fragments of memory that cut him and tore him apart, and every memory that assaulted him just made it clearer that he could not live like this.

Couldn't live with this.

Bucky was just there enough to hate himself for everything he'd done, but not there enough to know how to live. Not there enough to _want_ to live.

But there enough to not want Steve to see him like this, a broken, corrupted wreck of his best friend; there enough to know he needed to be put down so he wouldn't ever hurt anyone else, and there enough to know that he didn't want Steve to have to be the one to kill him.

And he wasn't there enough to lie down and let Steve put him out of his misery—knew that if Steve came, the Winter Soldier would have to murder him.

And Bucky was dead anyway, by all rights. He was just a ghost in the Soldier's brain.

But Steve was alive. And Steve needed to keep on living.

And it hurt, everything _hurt _and the Soldier couldn't block it out anymore, couldn't push to the back of his mind everything he'd done and everything Hydra had made him do and everything Hydra had done to him.

Opening his eyes to see the world tinted in shadows from his dark goggles, the Soldier sat up slowly, still trembling violently like the last autumn leaf hanging on before winter.

But he _was _winter. The Russian Winter, cold and deadly, destroying entire armies singlehandedly.

Nobody could end him, he knew.

Nobody except Bucky, who was finally, _finally_ fighting back.

And as he reached for one of his guns with his right hand, pressing it against the underside of his throat.

Because it should be his human hand that killed him, he thought—what was left of his humanity putting an end to the murder weapon he'd become.

He just wanted it to be over.

And as he pulled the trigger, he thought, _I'm sorry, Steve... _

* * *

Steve had been chasing Bucky for months.

Bucky was on the trail of Hydra, it seemed, destroying all their bases, but try as he might Steve and Sam were always at least two steps behind. At least.

By the time they reached one burnt skeleton of a base, there was news of another one, and each attempt they made to get to a Hydra base _before_ the Winter Soldier failed.

Steve was starting to think that this feeling of ire and frustration was what the Red Skull must have felt, when Captain America, Bucky, and the Howling Commandos kept destroying the Red Skull's Hydra bases before he could get there.

Sighing heavily, Steve stared out the front window of one of Stark's jets, which he was flying at top speed towards what was apparently the main Hydra base, supposedly huge, on an uncharted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Sam was with him, sitting in the co-pilot seat.

"Hey," Sam said, putting a dark hand on Steve's blue-clad arm and giving him a reassuring smile. "We'll find Bucky. This time for sure." Sam tried to keep Steve's morale up, he really did.

But Steve couldn't even attempt to muster a fake smile back, just nodded and turned his gaze back to the blue sky and blue ocean and white, white clouds.

And the fiery red speck on the horizon that was billowing black smoke.

"Looks like there's our island," Sam remarked, as he got up to begin strapping on the Falcon suit.

Steve wished the plane could go faster than it already was.

His heart was thumping a fast, resonating drumbeat in his chest as he touched the plane down on the island out of the way of the smoking, burning ruins of what used to be a huge Hydra base.

The Winter Soldier had done that, singlehandedly.

It still amazed Steve what he could do—that Bucky of his was a one-man army.

Steve and Sam burst out of the plane, and Steve was running just as hard as he possibly could because _he could not fail Bucky again. _He'd failed him too many times already...

"Sam!" Steve spoke through the intercom, "Circle the island and see if you can find Bucky or the vehicle he arrived in!"

"_On it, Captain." _

It didn't take long for Steve to reach the burning wreckage, and as his eyes scoped the area he couldn't help his heart trying to claw its way up his throat. He slowed down, scanning for any sign of footprints, any hint of where the Winter Soldier was.

"_Steve," _came Sam's voice, just barely audible over the crackling of the fire and the rumbling as burnt supports collapsed and the building continued to crumple in on itself.

"Did you find him?!" Steve blurted hopefully, glancing up to see Falcon circling above, a dark, winged silhouette in the smoke-filled sky.

"_No," _Sam said, and Steve's heart dropped with a splash into the dread pooling in his stomach.

"_But I've spotted the jet he came in on. It's still here, and covered with camouflage netting. _

Butterflies of hope tickled Steve's lungs, making it hard to breathe. "Then he's still here," Steve said.

"_Seems so." _

Steve began searching with invigorated fervor, blue eyes scanning for any sign of movement besides the dancing of the orange flames and the rolling waves of black smoke that filled his lungs with ash.

Bucky was here, he was _still here. _All Steve had to do was _find_ him.

Hope made his steps light and helium-airy as he searched, realizing that finally, _finally _he would get Bucky back, and yeah Hydra had fucked him up, but they would get through that, and even if Bucky was never the same again it wouldn't matter, because it would _still_ be _his Bucky _no matter what. He just needed Bucky by his side again.

Steve was planning in his mind all the things he would tell Bucky when he found him, when he caught sight of a black-clothed figure crumpled on the ground at the edge of the wreckage.

"BUCKY!" Steve shouted, breaking into a run and skidding to his knees beside the figure. "Bucky?!"

"_Did you find him?" _Sam asked.

The Winter soldier was lying on his back dressed in his all-black uniform, knees bent under him, arms at his side and a gun held in his right hand, and he was wearing that mask and those goggles that covered his face with that of a monster. Steve quickly tore it off.

His heart was beating like a racehorse's as he saw that all too familiar face, those closed eyes, bloodied lips. And when, trembling uncontrollably, Steve pressed his fingers to Bucky's neck, his hand came away covered in sanguine blood. His fingers dripped with it.

The blood was still warm, but there was no heartbeat.

Steve's vision blurred, filling with water that poured down his cheeks and trickled down his neck, head bowed and chin scrunched up. He choked on the breath that caught in his throat.

"_Steve?" _Sam said, after several moments, asking again, _"Did you find him?"_

"Yeah," Steve gasped out, voice wet and strangled. "I found him. We're too late."

He'd failed Bucky. Again.

He was too late to save him. Again.

And now Bucky was dead. Again.

And Steve was alone.

Again.

He could still hear Bucky's laughing voice, _"You're such a cutup, Steve. Sometimes I think if you didn't have me, there wouldn't be a person in the world who truly understood you."_

A strange, dying-animal sound writhed out from Steve's lips, staggering, a rough rasp and a bloodied burble.

Moments later, Sam was landing beside him, drawing a sharp intake of breath and cursing the black air blue as a bruise.

"He killed himself?" Sam asked, expression indiscernible behind his red goggles.

Steve could only nod, hunching over Bucky's swiftly cooling body and sobbing, deep, wracking sobs that shook Steve's entire 6 foot muscular frame like a 9.9 earthquake.

He looked as if he was going to crumble and rend apart, become just as much a pile of smoldering wreckage as the Hydra base that Bucky had blown to smithereens, which was still flaming and smoking, smelling of burnt electronics and scorched flesh.

With a quivering hand Steve brushed a lock of dark, oily hair out of Bucky's too-pale face, his expression so serene.

Drops of water landed on Bucky's cheeks.

Steve clenched his eyes shut. Maybe if he just wished this all away, when he opened them...

But he knew Bucky was dead and wasn't coming back _and it was all his fault_.

What good was Captain America if, with all his power—all his superhuman strength and speed—he could never save who mattered most?

As he clutched his best friend's body, Bucky's skin was wintry cold against his, despite the heat radiating over them. So he kept his eyes closed so he wouldn't have to _see. _

Wouldn't have to see how, once again, he hadn't been there for his friend when he'd been needed. And this time he had Bucky's body, so there was no doubt that he was _dead._

Unlike the last time... Steve had searched and scoured that ravine till he almost froze, but he never found Bucky's body. So of course he was assumed K.I.A. It had never occurred to Steve—to any of them—that Bucky could have survived that fall. Steve didn't think even he himself could have survived a fall like that.

And back in World War II, Steve had never thought to wonder how Bucky could always keep up with him, when everyone else lagged behind. Because Bucky had always been by his side, _always,_ and Steve never thought to consider that since he was superhuman now, Bucky shouldn't have been able to keep up with him anymore, when before, Bucky had always been so much stronger, so much faster, an infinitely better fighter than him.

So it was strange enough to have suddenly not lagged behind himself.

Steve was a supersoldier and could kick everyone else's asses and leave them in the dust. Except for Bucky.

But Bucky had always been Steve's hero.

And so Steve never realized that Bucky was different after Doctor Zola's experiments—Bucky hadn't known what they'd done to him, all he said he could remember was pain and cold.

And yet, it hadn't struck Steve that Bucky would have survived the fall, when Steve didn't even realize that Bucky wasn't normal.

Bucky had always been good at fighting—he was a natural. Even as a child he could take on a group of bullies on his own and send them crying to their mothers.

The Howling Commandos all thought Bucky was grim and hated fighting in the war, but Steve knew better (fighting was what Bucky was born for).

But Bucky's thinking face had always looked sullen and depressed, lips tilted down in a pout (and for some reason girls found that adorable), and Steve would often tease him about it when they were kids, asking him who had died.

There came a time when that joke wasn't funny anymore.

Still, Bucky had his genuine happy smiles that could light up a room or a cloudy afternoon. But he also had darker smiles, vicious smiles of bared teeth, smiles Steve had seen whenever Bucky beat up a group of bullies. It never mattered how bruised or bloody Bucky got as long as he won, and the bullies were either unconscious on the ground, or running away with tears on their faces and their tails between their legs.

He always liked fighting unbeatable odds (and beating them).

And when they the two of them were in the war, Steve would see that same dark grin on Bucky's face when he was fighting, or sniping, or shooting, or pulling off some dangerous stunt, or clearing the way for Captain America and the Howling Commandos by sneaking into an enemy base with a dagger between his teeth and taking out the perimeter guards.

Captain America might have been the Allies' biggest gun, but Bucky was their secret weapon.

And Steve had known that when Bucky volunteered for the US army, before he left for Europe, he had had to undergo training for months. But he hadn't known that Bucky had unusual talent which was recognized—didn't know till after he'd saved Bucky from the Hydra base, that it turned out that Bucky was one of the Allies' best shots with a gun and a knife as well as one of the best hand-to-hand combatants, and that he had received special training for a month in Europe in order to make him _the best._

When Steve had asked why, in that case, they hadn't used the supersoldier serum on Bucky, he'd gotten the answer that Bucky was already good enough he didn't _need _it, and the supersoldier army was going to be very public, while Bucky's work was to be done in the shadows.

(So everything that was needed to turn Bucky into the Ultimate Weapon was already there when the Russians found him in the snow. All they had to do was wipe away his conscience and spunky personality.)

It seemed that everyone looked up to Captain America, saw him as a hero, as a symbol, as the superhero who had all the answers and could do no wrong—he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.

But inside that costume was a man named Steve, and he was human.

Captain America had to be strong and perfect and couldn't lean on anyone, and the weight wore him down bit by bit, though he made his job look easy (it wasn't). But during the war, Bucky was there for Steve, like he'd always been. And both of them were masked men, but with each other they could let those masks fall and just be two boys from Brooklyn.

And Bucky was always there for Steve to lean on, to help him shoulder the burden of the world without falling down, help him smile even when there was nothing to smile about, to watch his back and scare death away every time they met near the edge, to be someone to talk to who would see Steve as _Steve_ and listen and understand and not judge, not expect him to be _perfect_.

Bucky was his partner, his confident, his wingman, his brother, his best friend, his home.

And when Bucky had died the first time, it had nearly crushed Steve.

But he'd carried on—he'd had to. He was Captain America, after all, and he had people to save and a war to win.

And then he had crashed into the arctic and woken up in a different century, and he'd had _nobody. _

There were the Avengers, of course, but they weren't the same as his team with Bucky and the Howling Commandos, they couldn't ever be.

Steve was from a different time, and he'd always be the odd one out in that sense. Even Thor, an alien from outer space, seemed to fit in more than he did, what with the Thunder God's booming personality, social charm and upbeat charisma.

There was also Sam. And though Sam understood Steve more than most, it was still not enough, not really.

Steve was alone.

He'd resigned himself to Bucky's death in 1945, but then, it turned out that in the modern day Bucky was _alive, _even if he was a brainwashed assassin, and Steve wasn't _alone _anymore. He could get Bucky back, could get his _best friend _back.

And now, here that hope was dashed away from him. And maybe Steve could stand Bucky's death _once, _but to go through all that again?

It was breaking him.

When Steve finally opened his eyes again and looked at the corpse of Bucky he held in his arms, his eyes landed on the metal arm, the evidence of what Hydra had done to his best friend.

His gut twisted, and suddenly Steve was standing up and staggering a few feet away, only to fall to his knees again on the rocky and ash-blanketed ground as he threw up what little breakfast he'd eaten, remembering everything he'd read in the file, how they'd tortured Bucky and brainwashed him and made him do their bidding. It was _inhuman_, what they did to him. Brutalized and dehumanized and desensitized and used him.

And Bucky hadn't been able to live with it.

Not only that, but there was nobody for Steve to vent his anger on—no way to get vengeance for his best friend's treatment, since Bucky had already utterly destroyed Hydra.

Steve wanted to rage and scream and beat something into a bloody pulp till he collapsed from exhaustion so absolute he would never have the strength to open his eyes again.

But he just remained quietly kneeling with bile still trickling acidic from his lips, chest heaving as he coughed up the black smoke his burning lungs had inhaled.

When Steve stood shakily to his feet and looked at the Winter Soldier again, this time his eyes landed on the gun, the gun that Bucky put to his throat and pulled the trigger.

Steve's fingers itched.

Suddenly Sam was there in front of him, saying something, and Steve just stared at him for a moment, watching his mouth move but not hearing anything beyond the rising scream in his ears.

Sam was shaking him.

"Steve," Sam was saying. "Steve, come _on_ man."

"I..." Steve rasped, swallowing, trying to see Bucky's dead body through Sam's living one. "I was too late..."

Eventually Sam got Steve to pick up his best friend's corpse and carry it back to their ship, and this time Sam piloted the plane while Steve sat in the back, holding the cold form of Bucky on his lap and whispering in a low, cracking voice, "Don't be dead, Bucky. Please, please don't be dead."

* * *

The sky was frothy with dark gray clouds, and the rain streaked down in bullets of frigid silver as the body of James Buchanan Barnes was buried in the ground.

Steve was there wearing just a leather jacket and jeans, not his Captain America outfit. He was quickly becoming drenched, clothes sticking to his muscular body, normally blondish hair plastering brown and wet to his face. He didn't appear to care.

It was a small congregation, made up of only Steve and the other Avengers and Sam. Steve was the only one there for Bucky. The others were only there for Steve.

Bucky didn't deserve this, Steve thought, as he stared at the marble plaque with its simple inscription, rain running like cold tears down his face and making the white stone glisten, just another war veteran's tombstone among a sea of them. The white rows ran like ribbons along the rolling hills, stretching as far as the eye could see.

Bucky was a war hero. He deserved a proper procession. A statue in his honor. He shouldn't be _forgotten_, should never have been cheated out of the glory he so rightfully _earned_.

One by one the soaked Avengers left, giving him a pat on the shoulder or touching his arm, silently offering their condolences. None of them spoke. They didn't know what to say.

Perhaps there wasn't anything to say.

Finally, it was just Steve and Thor. The Thunder God didn't exactly mind the rain, it seemed.

"I..." Thor started in his deep voice, clearing his throat somewhat awkwardly. "I, too, have lost my brother twice."

Steve pulled his gaze from the freshly disturbed soil of the grave to look up at the Thor, summer-cerulean eyes meeting thunder-cobalt. Both sets of blue orbs were watery.

"How do you do it?" Steve asked, trying to keep his voice from cracking. He failed. (God, now that he'd failed Bucky again, was he going to be failing in everything?) "How do you _live _with knowing you failed to save someone _twice?"_

Thor looked down, away from Steve's gaze. His long curling blond hair didn't seem nearly as wet as it should have been, and somehow his red cape still fluttered in the wind despite the sky's endless tears.

"We cannot change the past," Thor rumbled. "We can only move forward, and live our lives as best we can, which is what they would want us to do. And rest assured that our brave brothers are celebrating in Valhalla after their glorious deaths as warriors."

"Bucky didn't die in battle," Steve whispered, not meeting Thor's gaze. "He killed himself."

He could hear Thor shift uncomfortably beside him.

"He would be in Helheim, then," Thor said. "There is no place in Valhalla for..." he trailed off. 'Cowards' he was going to say, probably, but thought better of it—from what Steve had told him of this Bucky, he had never been a coward.

Steve didn't say anything, just kept looking down at Buck's grave with his shoulders hunched and rain saturating him to his bones.

Eventually Thor left, swinging his hammer and taking off into the sky, a bolt of lightning flashing bright and white-blue, illuminating the graves before the congealing darkness once more flooded over everything.

Even Thor didn't fully understand, not really. It wasn't so much Bucky's _death_ that was so horribly tragic—it was Bucky's _life. _That he had been so thoroughly broken, turned into a weapon and a tool, that he'd felt the need to kill himself.

Nobody should _ever_ have to go through what Bucky did as the Winter Soldier.

Steve had been trying to save Bucky not just for himself, but to give Bucky another chance at _life_, at living as a human being and being _happy. _Because Bucky deserved that.

Steve's hands were clenched into tense fists at his sides, but bringing them up he slowly opened them, watching the rain run through the creases in his palms. Wishing nothing more than that he could go back and save Bucky from Hydra so they never could have turned him into the Winter Soldier.

But like Thor had said, they couldn't change the past.

* * *

Steve didn't smile anymore. He hadn't smiled since Sam's quip about being 'hot stuff' when Steve had pointed out that his mechanical wings were smoking.

That had been when they were searching for Bucky, Steve had had hope that he would save him, and both their lives would get better. When he still thought he could smell the fresh air that was harbinger to the end of the tunnel, and when he thought that he could see a light when he opened his eyes wide.

Turned out that speck hadn't been daylight like he'd hoped, but a firefly, crushed beneath the weight of the darkness it couldn't stave.

Steve was no Atlas. And yet, he still carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, staggering beneath it, but continuing to trudge forward, step by step.

If the Avengers had expected him to mope and lock himself in his room for a proper cry-fest, they were sadly mistaken.

Steve didn't let Bucky's loss cripple him—no, he turned it to anger. A blazing inferno of anger (anger at himself for not being there for his best friend when he was needed, anger at Bucky for thinking he had to kill himself and for leaving Steve alone) that he unleashed upon every villain the Avengers fought.

If any villain had ever thought Captain America a joke, they certainly held that sentiment no longer. Cap was fast and strong and _brutal._ There were times the other Avengers actually had to physically restrainhim.

And when there wasn't a threat to vent his fury on, he vented it in Stark Tower's gym and training room, obliterating so many punching bags Tony made it a priority to construct tougher bags that could actually last more than a few minutes against the Captain.

Steve trained till his knuckles were bleeding, ran till he wore out another pair of sneakers, performed gymnastic maneuvers in the 'Jungle Gym Room' (as Tony called it) until sweat ran in rivulets over his skin in mini zebra stripe patterns and plastered the hair on his forearms to his skin, his already form-fitting wife-beater sticking to him like old snakeskin, which he would then peel off over his head and toss in a soaking lump to the floor as he continued his parkour.

He didn't rest, when he could help it. When he slept there were dreams.

Not just nightmares, even.

Perhaps his subconscious mind wasn't giving him nightmares every night because his worst nightmare had already come true, and there wasn't too much more he could be tortured with.

But in any case, often times Steve would wake up with silent tears streaming down his face and an aching, empty cavity where his heart should be, having lost it in happy memories, and the name, "Bucky," a whisper ghosting from between his lips.

Often times, Steve's dreams were of summers in Brooklyn, when both winter's illnesses and spring's allergies were over and it was always warm.

Summer was golden in the air, and it manifested in Bucky's blue eyes when he smiled.

Summer was happiness so bright and potent that it burned and left Steve with tingles all up and down his spine.

Summer was the season for apples and mom's apple pie, and summer was for sketching all day and talking late into the night, climbing up onto the roof and searching the fathomless black firmament for shooting stars amidst all the fireflies.

And Bucky would pull Steve against his side with his right arm, pointing up with his left at Polaris, saying to Steve, "See that North Star? That's how brilliant you are"_ (and I'll always follow you)._

Summer was freedom, and the last day of school Bucky would race out of the building yelling at the top of his lungs, and Steve would shake his head and smile as he watched him, feeling his spirit soar with Bucky and trying to imagine what it felt like to run with all the power and grace Bucky did, leanly muscled arms and legs pumping and dark hair dancing around his face in the wind.

Steve's hair was like dried grass of summer, his eyes cloudless summer-sky-blue, and his heart was full of summer's freedom and optimism and smothering love. But Buck always had an autumn cynicism, and winter brutality that he tried not to let Steve see, and though his eyes were a rainy blue Steve never saw him cry (when Bucky did cry Steve was always too sick to hear or see the tears) and all Steve saw in Bucky was the tender care and determination of spring to keep life worth living.

Bucky's smile was cocky and bold like daffodils, the first flowers to raise their heads and laugh in winter's face, which made it so strange to see him freeze over into the Winter Soldier, gaze piercing as icy sleet and dark as those winter nights when Steve struggled to breathe.

Steve even missed his and Bucky's arguments, their occasional yelling matches and cold shoulders, the grudges they could never hold for very long. God, he'd give anything to be able to argue with Bucky again.

Other times, often enough, in Steve's dreams it was still World War II. He still dreamt about foxholes in the black forest, still heard the screams of terrified soldiers, smelled their blood and tears. Still dreamt about Bucky and all the others he couldn't save.

Those probably counted as nightmares. World War II was a nightmare, full of unspeakable horrors. They jammed in his throat and he couldn't scream.

The other Avengers would never, _could_ never understand what that had been like. (Steve had been on the front lines during D-Day, for God's sakes.) It had been a living nightmare, and it still was one in his dreams.

At least he'd had Bucky with him, in the war.

Except that in his war nightmares, memories tangled with fears, and he would watch Bucky die over and over and over again.

And not just Bucky falling from the train, either—he watched Bucky die in nearly every possible way a soldier could die in the war. Bullets, shrapnel, explosions, mustard gas, Hydra weapons...

Sometimes, though, in Steve's dreams he would be in the graveyard standing before Bucky's grave, and Bucky would be a corpse. Pallid, tissue-paper skin and hollowed, demon-dark eyes, form cadaverous but he still moved like a predator when he clawed out of the dirt and came to stand by Steve.

And those once full lips, now parched and torn, would pull into a smile and Bucky would say, "I'm alright, ya punk."

In Steve's dreams, Bucky didn't smell of blood and rotting flesh. He smelled of gunpowder and snow.

Steve would reach out and place a hand on Bucky's metal arm (the only part of Bucky that didn't appear as if it would crumble at the lightest touch, at a butterfly's kiss, a whispered breath,) and say, "I was too late."

And Buck's corpse reach out with his hand of tattered flash and exposed bone and place it against Steve's cheek (it was colder than the metal hand), and Bucky's fathomless blue eyes wouldn't leave Steve's.

"Nah, not at the island," Bucky would say, blowing stringy dark hair out of his face and grinning as if this was all A-okay. "It was too late when I fell outta that train."

And Steve would wake up with shivers.

"How are you?" the Avengers would ask him, when they walked into the communal kitchen and found the supersoldier already busy cooking breakfast.

"Snafu," Steve answered. _Situation Normal: All Fucked Up. _

He was a man out of time, and he couldn't help but feel those borrowed seconds drain away like sand in an hourglass. Pebbles making ripples as they hit the water, silver and black circles on the blue, expanding forever until they're swallowed in the river rapids.

* * *

After the Bucky's funeral, Steve had gone to visit Peggy in her nursing home.

He walked into the room wearing a hesitant smile that wasn't really a smile.

"Hey Peggy," he said, coming over to sit in the chair by her bed.

She turned her head to look at him, white hair framing her face like an aged angel, dark brown eyes meeting his blue ones.

"Steve..." she whispered, and his heart sunk. "You're alive..." Tears glistened in her eyes. "It's been such a long, long time..."

Steve's breath hitched, and he reached out to take her withered, liver-spotted hand in one of his own strong, youthful ones. "I know, Peggy. I..."

Usually he was able to keep himself more or less composed, but he couldn't help the tears welling in his own eyes, or the gasping sob that escaped his lips and wracked his chest. "Oh God, Peggy, Bucky's dead... he's dead, again, and I couldn't save him..."

And even if Peggy wasn't fully aware in that moment of what was going on, and even if she wouldn't remember this, Steve couldn't help the whole story from spilling out, everything since he'd woken up in the present, from his shock at bursting out into the middle of New York, to Loki's Chitauri invasion, to his assignments with Shield, to Bucky and Hydra and the weapon they'd turned him into, to chasing Bucky around the world and arriving too late.

She probably didn't even understand most of what he said through his choked, cracking voice, but she listened and ran her thumb over the back of his hand, and when he finished and broke down into gross, ugly sobbing that scrunched his chin and made his face patchy and red and his nose runny, she let him forward, hunched over his knees with his forehead on her mattress. His broad, muscular shoulders shuddered, like he was but a fragile sapling caught in a gale, and she moved her hand to run her fingers through his dark blond hair.

"Oh, Steve..." she said. Her eyes were clearer than they'd been before, and it was obvious that somewhere during his monologue her memory had come back, at least for the time being. "You've been through so much, but you're so very young, still... so very young..."

And Steve let himself sob, let himself break down like he would never be able to at the tower with the Avengers. To them, to the _world, _he was Captain America, and Captain America was strong and composed and would never, could never break. But with Peggy, he was just Steve Rogers. Still just the skinny kid from Brooklyn who had something against running away.

She was the last one who knew him as Steve Rogers, rather than Captain America. The last one who didn't know him as a mask.

So when, only a few days later when Steve was back at the tower, he got the news that from the nursing home that Peggy Carter had passed away in her sleep, he didn't cry. He couldn't allow himself to cry, not when the Avengers were all surreptitiously watching him as he took the phone call.

So instead he just thanked the nursing staff for letting him know, ended the call and stuck the phone back in his pocket, rejoining the rest of the team at the table for breakfast.

"Something happened," Natasha asked, except it wasn't a question.

Steve just shrugged and shovelled a large forkful of eggs in his mouth so he wouldn't have to answer.

* * *

Whenever he could, Steve would attend Sam's meetings at the VA. Sam always smiled, shaking his hand and patting him on the shoulder, saying, "How you doing, man?"

Steve's lips would press together into something that wasn't quite a smile. "I'm doing alright," he would say.

"Still working?" Sam asked him one day.

"Yeah."

"Figured. Still thinking about getting out?"

Steve just shook his head. "Don't know what I'd do with myself."

Steve never talked during the meetings. He just sat near the back, baseball cap pulled low over his face, listening to Sam and the other veterans.

It did help, though. It was nice to know he wasn't the only one with some of these problems. And Sam was a great man, he really was.

* * *

"Humans have figured out how to travel through space," Steve said to Tony one day, when the genius was having Steve test out yet another new and improved punching bag. This one was a Mark VII.

Steve's fists battered the punching bag like bullets from a machine gun. "Have we figured out how to travel through time?"

"Not us," Tony said, kicking back in a lawn chair stationed at the edge of the gym, watching Steve the Human Battering Ram beat the stuffing out of the poor punching bag. "But we've been visited by figures from the future, on occasion. We've only just begun to understand what time is, in its essence. We used to believe that time is a linear sequence of events, unchangeable, but now there's been evidence to support the theory that time is a living organism that bends and flows..." Tony rattled on, bringing more scientific terms into the explanation and Steve eventually lost track of the conversation, letting Tony's words become background noise as he punched, grunting with exertion.

Finally, after several long minutes of Tony's scientific ramblings and Steve's vicious boxing, the punching bag finally burst, flying across the room.

Steve stood, panting, raising a bandaged hand to wipe away the sweat that was dripping into his eyes and trickling salty onto his lips.

"So," he said, turning to the genius who's mouth was just placed on Pause, "That means no, we haven't conquered time travel."

"Yeah, no," Tony agreed, getting up out of the lawn chair and crossing over to inspect the brutalized punching bag. He looked up at Steve's expression, noting the hard lines of the supersoldier's tense jaw and the lackluster blue of his eyes. "Look, I know what you're thinking—"

"Don't tell me you're a mindreader now," Steve said flatly, grabbing a Mark VI punching bag from where he'd lined several up against the wall, hefting it onto his shoulder.

"I don't need to be a mindreader to know that you want to bring Bucky back," Tony argued, crossing his arms and glaring with bright, dark brown eyes at the supersoldier. "But look, even if you could, the consequences of fucking up the timestream like that—"

Steve hung up the punching bag, one-handed, then began to lay into it with a desperate fervor. "Forget it," he intoned, words coming in huffs of breath as he boxed. "You said we couldn't travel through time anyway."

Tony sighed, loping over to collapse back into the red lawn chair, letting his legs sprawl in front of him as he leaned back and regarded the Captain with narrowed eyes, watching him hit the punching bag again and again and again. After several moments of being ignored, Tony gave another sigh and let his head fall back to stare at the ceiling.

"Look, Steve," he said, bringing his head back up and fixing his stare on the back of Steve's head of sweat-slicked dirty-blond hair. "I know what it's like to lose people I love. It hurts—"

"_Twice, _Tony," Steve interrupted him, punctuating his words with blows to the scanvas. _"Twice _I failed to save my best friend. And now—"

"You're brokenhearted," Tony butted in, sitting up in his chair and setting his elbows on his knees. "I get it. A broken heart is blind, and all that. But look around you, Steve—Hydra is gone for good, thanks to your friend, and you're still here and you've still got _us. _If that counts for anything."

Steve didn't answer, just kept waling at the punching bag. His fists thumped against the canvas and breath hissed through his teeth.

Tony got up and left the room.

Another few punches, and the bag went flying. Steve let his face fall into his hands as his chest heaved (from trying to catch his breath, _not _from dry, hacking sobs).

* * *

It was after a mission where Steve had stopped a terrorist group and managed to crack his ribs in the process, that Bruce invited him to his floor for a cup of tea.

"I need someone to try out my chamomile tea with me," Bruce told the supersoldier with a small smile, as Steve gingerly sat down at the wooden table. "You'll like chamomile. It's relaxing."

"You made this tea yourself?" Steve asked, as Bruce poured him a steaming cup of the honey-dark liquid.

Bruce set the teacup down before Steve, before pouring one for himself and taking a seat opposite the soldier, nodding.

"At least," Bruce said, "I grew the chamomile and dried it." He gestured to the various chamomile plants living in pots around the room. There was one in the center of the table, and Bruce reached out to pluck off a flower.

He twirled the stem in his fingers.

"Did you know," he told Steve, "That if you squeeze a chamomile flower," he demonstrated, pinching the yellow center and white petals between his fingers, "and think of a specific fruit, when you smell the chamomile it will smell like that fruit?" Bruce then sniffed the chamomile, closing his eyes, lips twitching upwards at the scent.

Curious, Steve took one of the flowers from the plant, squeezing it and thinking, _apple. _

When he sniffed the flower, his blue eyes widened at the apple scent, and he was reminded of being in his kitchen back in Brooklyn with sunlight filtering through the dirty window when his mom was still alive, and she would solicit his and Bucky's help to peel apples to make an apple pie. "Wow," he said, a note of awe in his voice, "That actually worked."

Bruce grinned at him. "The chamomile doesn't _actually _smell like the specific fruit, of course—chamomile just a generically fruity scent, so that when you think of a particular fruit and smell it your brain is able to trick you into smelling the fruit you're thinking of. It almost always works—except with durian." Bruce gave a low chuckle. "Never can get my brain to make the chamomile smell like durian."

There was sugar and cream on the table, but Steve didn't add any to his tea, just grabbed a spoon and swirled it in the dark liquid idly while he waited for the steaming beverage to cool slightly.

Bruce took a sip of his tea and then set the cup down gently on the table. He stared at Steve for a moment, noting the soldier's lapse of silence, those blue eyes becoming distant.

"You miss him," Bruce stated. "Bucky. You miss him a lot."

Steve looked up from his tea to meet Bruce's brown gaze, before staring back down at his hand swirling the spoon slowly in the hot liquid.

"Yeah," Steve murmured. "Yeah, I do. And..."

Bruce waited.

Steve let out a shaky breath, clenching his eyes shut. "He killed himself, Bruce," he whispered. "He eradicated Hydra and then shot himself."

Bruce was silent for a moment. When he did speak, his voice was soft and not completely steady. "I've been there... when everything seemed so hopeless and life seemed so cruel and I'd killed so many people that death seemed to be the only escape, the only respite from the cold and the guilt. The Other Guy prevent me from dying, and I managed to push forward, but..." he sighed, wrapping both hands around his warm teacup. "Think of it this way, Steve: at least life can't hurt Bucky anymore."

When Bruce looked up at the captain, Steve's smile was the saddest thing he'd ever seen. More of a grimace than a smile, really.

"He didn't need to kill himself," Steve murmured. "We could have worked through it. I could have helped him. Things could have gotten _better..."_

* * *

"You shouldn't have done that," Natasha said, as she held out a hand to help Steve to his feet.

Steve took her hand, giving a low groan and putting his other hand to his bleeding side as she helped him up.

Her green eyes were concerned. "You're going to get yourself killed if you keep that sort of thing up," she told him seriously. "And with how rash you've been lately it almost seems like you're _trying _to get yourself killed. Either that or you just enjoy getting punched."

Steve gave a small huff. "I had him on the ropes," he insisted.

"Of course you did," Natasha said, lips quirking, making sure Steve saw her roll her eyes. Her expression got serious again. "But look, Steve—"

"I'm _not _trying to get myself killed," Steve assured her, meeting her gaze with his sincere blue eyes that could not lie worth a dime.

"Good," Natasha said, standing on her tiptoes to kiss Steve's cheek. "Because we all care about you, you know."

Steve looked away. "I know," he said.

"And we're worried about you," Natasha continued, keeping a hand on his arm as they began walking back to the quinjet. She was limping slightly, and Steve let her lean on him for support, though they both knew she was the one being supportive. "Ever since your friend's death, you've been acting erratic, like your head isn't completely in the game. Not that you're not still _good _at your job, because you _are. _But you've been taking dangerous chances, you've been more on edge, more _violent._"

"Look, I..." he glanced down, snorting, as he scuffed a boot against the ground and sent several pebbles skittering across the cement. "I'm too furious with Bucky for killing himself to kill myself. It's just been a rough several months. Searching for Bucky, always two steps behind, then catching up to him only to be too late to save him..."

"You've got a lot of anger," Natasha surmised. "You're trying to push yourself harder so nothing like that ever happens again. You're trying to push yourself hard enough you won't have the time nor the energy to drown in the guilt and memories. But it still haunts you every moment of every day."

Steve didn't answer, which, as far as Natasha was concerned, was answering.

She squeezed his arm. "Just remember that we're all here for you, okay? Even Tony, who's an asshole, but he's got heart where it counts."

The twitch of Steve's lips might have been considered an actual smile, except that it didn't quite reach his vapid blue eyes.

"I'm fine, Natasha. Seriously."

Natasha could see the lie in every line of Steve's body. He was not fine. He was anything but fine.

Steve had lost a part of himself when Bucky died, Natasha was realizing. Those long-lashed eyes when she first met him were vivid blue, albeit darkened by death and pain, the obvious mark of an experienced soldier; but after he discovered that Bucky was still alive, those blue eyes had gained a new effulgence, like a fire had been lit behind them and chased away some of the harbored demons. And now... Bucky was gone again, and Steve's eyes were even darker, even duller than before. There was something almost _dead_ about them, the way they were a flat numb-blue. Nothing seemed to reach them except winter-blue sorrow and steel-blue fury. And Natasha couldn't help but wonder if summer-sky-blue happiness would ever grace those eyes again.

_(Quoth the raven "Nevermore.")_

* * *

It was the middle of the night and Steve woke up shouting "Grab my hand!" with his hand reaching up desperately, only to grasp empty air.

He woke up blinking away tears, surprised at the warm wetness, when he could still remember the feel of them frozen to his cheeks and eyelashes as the wind clawed at him.

But in his room it was warm and dark and the shadows shifted into familiar figures, and Steve knew he wouldn't be getting any more sleep that night. So swinging his legs around to the edge of the bed he stepped with bare feet onto the soft carpet and padded to his closet to get his boots and exercise clothes.

When he went down to the gym, he found that he wasn't the only one awake.

"Nightmare?" Clint asked, as he fired an arrow, hitting the target dead center even though he'd turned his head to look at Steve when the soldier came in.

"Yeah," Steve said.

Clint nodded in understanding. "Me too," he said, lowering his bow and turning to fully face Steve. "They suck. Oh hey though, are you going to be doing your crazy gymnast parkour stuff in the Jungle Gym Room?"

"I was planning on it," Steve said, tossing a towel on one of the red lawn chairs.

Giving a small simper, Clint offered, "Because I was going to practice aiming with a gun, and I have paintball gun, so if you want some practice doing your crazy gymnast parkour stuff while dodging bullets..."

Steve's lips twitched upwards. Even if it didn't reach his eyes, given how morose Steve had been as of late, it was all Clint could do not to grin and fistpump at the reaction, however small it was.

"Sure," Steve agreed. "Should be fun."

"I am going to totally turn that white wife-beater of yours into a work of modern art," Clint grinned.

Steve's lips quirked again. "I wouldn't bet on it."

Clint wanted to start cheering.

In the Jungle Gym Room, Steve began flipping and vaulting through the maze of bars, with more grace and power than an Olympic gold medal gymnast. Clint did his very best to shoot the Captain, but he room ended up getting more of a new paint job than Steve did, though Clint was able to hit Steve with a yellow splatter to his ankle, a blue splatter to his side, and a pink splatter to his butt.

"Haha! I shot you in the ass!" Clint crowed, grinning triumphantly.

Steve, who had been wiping off his sweat with a hand towel, threw the damp towel at the archer. "And I just hit you in the face," he remarked dryly.

"Eew, sweaty," Clint said, making a face as he pulled off the towel and held it between two fingers, before tossing it back to Steve. "Here, you can have it back."

Steve caught it without looking, crossing over to where he'd set his plastic water bottle at the edge of the room and picking it up, drinking deeply. Some of the water escaped past his lips, trickling down his jaw, his neck.

"So," Clint said, absentmindedly twirling his empty paintball gun in one hand, "If you could go back in time and get to Barnes before he killed himself, and save him, would you?"

Steve removed the bottle from his lips, taking a moment to stare down at it.

"Because," Clint continued, "I know there's certainly things I would like to go back in time to change, and I was just curious..."

"No," Steve said after several moments. "I wouldn't go back in time and save him at the island." He looked up then, meeting Clint's gray eyes. "I would go back in time to 1945 and save him before Hydra was ever able to turn him into the Winter Soldier."

"Makes sense," Clint acknowledged. He sighed, leaning back against the wall, still twirling the gun. "Too bad we can't go back in time, huh?"

"Yeah," Steve said, taking another swig of water. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

Clint pushed himself away from the wall with another sigh, sticking the paintball gun into his back pants pocket, where it stuck out awkwardly. "Best not to dwell on those What Ifs too much though, I guess," he said. "Gotta keep looking to the future and moving on, and all that. Don't want to get stuck in the past."

"Yeah," Steve agreed again.

Clint considered him for a moment, tucking his hands into his front pockets. "_Would _you though, really, if you had the chance? Would you actually do it? Mess up the timestream to save him? Because you know we _need_ you here, Cap. In the present. We wouldn't be the Avengers without you. Hell, we probably wouldn't still be _alive _at this point if it wasn't for you. And if you went back in time..."

"I don't know," Steve said in a flat voice. "But hey, the doctors think that the serum keeps me from aging, so there's no saying that if I did go back I wouldn't still be here when the Avengers form." He let one corner of his lips quirk before turning away. "But like you said, there's really no point in speculating over something that will never happen."

Slinging his towel over his shoulder, Steve prepared to leave.

"Hey, Steve," Clint called.

Steve turned to look at the archer.

"How do you do it?"

"How do I do what?"

"How do you dodge all those bullets?" Clint clarified, and there was a hint of awe in his voice. "Because I mean, I'm not at my best with a gun, admittedly, but I'm still a helluva shot."

"Oh," Steve said, giving a halfhearted chuckle that sounded more self-deprecating than amused. "The serum. I see faster than normal people do."

Clint's mouth dropped open slightly. "You see faster than the bullets," he said, gray eyes wide in disbelief.

"Yeah," Steve shrugged. "Fast enough to dodge bullets, but apparently not fast enough to save my best friend."

Clint closed his mouth, and his expression shifted into empathy and concern, his gaze softening. "Look, I—" he started.

"It's okay," Steve interrupted, turning and putting a hand on the doorframe. "Thanks for the spar, by the way," he said over his shoulder as he left the room.

"Yeah, yeah sure," came Clint's voice from behind him. "Anytime."

* * *

On the table in Steve's room sat the file on the Winter Soldier, and an open sketchbook, with a pencil, a piece of chalk, and a malleable eraser.

Steve found himself reading the Winter Soldier from time, though he wasn't completely sure why. It made him feel sick. The first time he'd read it he had literally thrown up, and had knelt on the bathroom tile in front of the toilet, shaking with horror and fury. He'd had to finish reading it in the bathroom, as the words kept hitting his vomit reflex. Everything in that file had been done to his best friend. His _best friend._

Steve had been on the front line in World War II, had seen Hitler's death camps, and what had been done to Bucky _still _made Steve throw up (the death camps had made him wretch as well).

But Steve still found himself rereading the file, maybe to try to feel some of Bucky's pain, to try to understand what he'd gone through.

He'd tacked both photos from the file onto his wall, next to his mirror—both the one of Bucky from the military and the one of the Winter Soldier in the cryo-tank.

He'd stared at them so much that he would have been able to draw them each from memory in photographic detail.

His sketchbook was brimming with art. There were pictures of the Avengers, pictures of New York in the modern era.

But mostly it was filled with drawings from his memories. Pictures of New York how it used to look, pictures of his mother stirring soup, of Bucky trying to walk on his hands up and down the stairs of their apartment, of Peggy in her uniform, of Peggy in her red dress, of Peggy in a wedding dress (that one was from his imagination), of Bucky lying on his stomach with his sniper rifle, of the Howling Commandos gathered around a campfire, of Bucky hanging onto the door of the train, of Bucky standing on the walkway of the Insight Helicarrier.

His sketchbook was brimming with memories, and sometimes images of dreams. Mostly in black and white, graphite or charcoal pencil, but sometimes he would use some colored pencils or pastels, occasionally a ballpoint pen.

When Steve was a kid, he only drempt in shades of black and white and gray. He didn't know why. But he didn't dream in color until the war, when everything was far too vivid, and he wore the red, white and blue of the American flag, and Bucky's blue eyes had never looked so gray.

Drawing relaxed Steve. He drew for the tranquility, and so that he wouldn't forget.

When Steve wasn't covered in blood and grime from his missions, he was covered charcoal dust, smudges of black on his face, black beneath his fingernails, black ink staining his fingers.

Many a night found him drawing rather than sleeping. Sometimes, he found that drawing was actually more restful.

* * *

Steve went up to the roof of Avengers Tower. He did that, sometimes. He liked it up there.

He'd woken up at an ungodly hour and realized there was no way he was falling back asleep, and his room had been too confining, the air cloying.

Outside, the wind tickled his neck and threaded through his hair, drying his sweat. The air wasn't any sweeter than inside, but it was cooler and it tasted free. Even if that meant that freedom tasted of cigarette smoke and car exhaust with maybe a touch of ocean.

And though it was night, the city never slept, and he could the cars clog the streets with stripes of red and white, and all the luminescent lights of the city that pulsed like a living organism—maybe a jellyfish, with thousands upon thousands of eyes that would blink on and off and change colors.

That night, he was just sitting there with his legs in front of him and leaning back on his arms as he looked up and searched the fuzzy gray (starless) heavens for Polaris, when the sky split open with a crack of rainbow light that made Steve jump to his feet on instinct, and Thor was deposited on the roof several feet away from him.

Thor had left to deal with some business in Asgard, but now he'd apparently returned, and he had a wooden barrel hefted over a shoulder.

"Steven," Thor greeted, a large grin on his bearded face. "Just the man I wanted to see!"

"Hi Thor," Steve said, relaxing out of his defensive position. "What's up?"

Thor looked baffled for a second, before he grinned again as he remembered, "Oh, right. That is Midgardian slang for the question, 'How fares thee?'"

"Um, probably," Steve said. "What's in the barrel?"

Thor's grin got even larger. "This is Asgardian mead," he declared, patting the barrel with the hand that wasn't carrying it. "It is far stronger than any of your mortal liquors, and I believe it is strong enough that you could drink it and become inebriated."

Steve just stared at him, blinking blue eyes that were still haunted with the remnants of dreams. His gaze latched onto the barrel.

"Of course, I can usually drink one of these barrels on my own," Thor continued, "But I thought that there is no one I would like better than to share this with than our good Captain."

Everything inside Steve _hurt_. He'd gotten used to it, was able to ignore it most of the time, but as he looked at the blond god's hopeful face, he realized that he wanted the pain to _go away. _Just for a few hours. Just for one night. Just for a moment.

Even before the serum he'd never let himself get truly smashed, but he knew that alcohol made everything warm and fuzzy, and he knew from going out to the bar with Bucky that he was a gentle drunk, that he didn't get violent like his father had. So Steve knew he wouldn't hurt anybody if he did get drunk. Not that he would be able to hurt Thor anyway.

"Yeah," Steve told the god, and it was almost worth it just to see Thor's grin. "Yeah, I'll share some mead with you."

They went inside to Tony's bar, found some large glasses, and Thor opened the tap.

The mead was dark and had a bitter, beer-like flavor. Thor told him the particular variety of mead was created by fermenting honey with water and hops.

It was just the two of them, sitting on barstools at the counter in the middle of the night, refilling their glasses and trying to see whether Steve could keep up with Thor or if the thunder god would drink the supersoldier under the table.

For the first time since before the serum, Steve got tipsy.

Thor was laughing boisterously, telling stories of his exploits as a young warrior in Asgard.

Steve started giggling. _Giggling. _Steve _never _giggled. But things were softer now, fuzzy, and everything was funny even though it shouldn't have been.

Eventually, when Thor quieted down, Steve decided that it was too quiet and took the stairs to his room, hoisting up his record player and managing to carry it back to common room without tripping or damaging anything.

The song, "I'll Never Smile Again" by Tommy Dorsey started playing.

Thor refilled their glasses with more Asgardian mead.

And for the first time ever, Steve let himself get completely, utterly drunk.

He got a hangover the next day. (But it was okay, because his head hurt too much to think about much of anything.)

And Tony was never going to let him live it down.

* * *

Steve's hangover was gone by the day after that, which was fortunate, since the Avengers had to deal with another threat.

The supersoldier was just finishing brushing a comb through his previously rumpled hair, making sure his clothes weren't wrinkled and that his appearance was perfectly collected and not at all like he'd had a hangover the day previous, when Tony's voice echoed through the tower speakers.

"_Avengers assemble! Everybody suit up and get yo asses to the conference room, because this one's big!" _

So Steve had to quickly toss off the clothes he'd just straightened out and get into his Captain America suit, grabbing his shield from its hook on the wall and clasping on his helmet, letting the steadfast and stalwart confidence of Captain America settle over him, hiding every one of Steve Rogers's insecurities and faults.

There was a certain weight to wearing the suit—to wearing America's colors—a weight that straightened Steve's shoulders and forced him to stand up tall.

It took him all of two minutes to get into the suit and another thirty seconds to run up the stairs to the conference room.

"An unidentified ship landed outside Washington, and it didn't come in peace," Iron Man said, the large screen showing footage of the ship behind him. It looked like a futuristic spaceship, all shiny metal and glowing blue lazers. "The military is powerless. Tanks, artillery—nothing can touch it."

"Anyone taking credit?" Steve asked, all down to business.

"Yeah. Calls himself Kang, talks about us like we're insects. Anyone recognize him?"

The screen showed a tall, well-built man in a green and purple armored suit, two glowing spheres on his chest, and his face was blue, and it was undeterminable from the image whether the blue was his actual skin or whether it was a blue-tinted transparent faceplate in his purple helmet.

The Avengers all shook their heads.

Steve analyzed the image, narrowing his eyes and pursing his lips thoughtfully.

"You got something?" Tony asked him, voice with the mechanical edge it always had when the faceplate of his Iron Man suit was down.

"His bearing," Steve remarked. "The way he carries himself. Not like a warrior. Like a commander. Whoever he is, he's not accustomed to being challenged."

"Yeah?" Tony asked, and even with his faceplate down and his robotized voice, his smirk was still audible. "Too bad."

When the Avengers got to the scene, they came in with guns blazing.

Iron Man blasted Kang with his repulsors, Captain America threw his shield, Thor swung his hammer, Hulk attempted to smash the guy's ship, Hawkeye fired his arrows and Black Widow made to sneak around behind him.

Steve had laid out a plan, but they hadn't completely known what they were up against.

This Kang was more powerful than they'd realized.

All their attacks bounced harmlessly off his forcefield, and he took advantage of the Avengers' overconfidence, laying them out like tenpins. He even injured _Thor_ by sending the Thunder God's hammer crashing back into the him, hard enough to split the moon.

"Pathetic," Kang sneered. I came all this way to do battle with you six?" He laughed, then, as he blasted them with concussive bolts from the fingertips of his gauntlets. "Does it please you to learn how vastly history has overrated you?"

The Avengers picked themselves off the ground, blue wisps curling like smoke from their bodies.

"Guys, I think we may actually be out of our league here," Tony murmured over their intercom. "This guy has technology beyond both my and Doctor Doom's most sophisticated designs."

But to Kang, Iron Man demanded defyingly, "Where have you come from?!"

Kang grinned, the expression malevolent and gleeful. "I come from two thousand years in your future," he announced. "I'm a _time traveler."_

Something in Steve's chest went so cold it felt hot. Like dry ice.

With a concussive roar, the Hulk leapt forward, managing to knock Kang off his feet and send him flying back against his ship.

Kang, however, seemed unfazed.

"I've been marching back through the centuries taking what pleased me and erasing what _doesn't," _he said, still grinning as he got back to his feet.

The Avengers charged him.

"And I can't decide which applies to _you," _he drawled, before waving a hand an encasing them in a forcefield of energy, hurtling them inside his ship. "But my guess is that you'll make very valuable _slaves_ now that I declare myself the _sovereign king_ of this era." His grin was wide and malicious and blue, and Steve wanted nothing more than to crack his shield across the tyrant's face and see whether the blue was skin or glass. "To your _cells." _

But the Avengers weren't feeling obliged to be compliant.

Steve had managed to catch onto the ceiling, and as Kang entered the ship he dropped down in front of him.

"I'm no one's slave," he said, voice steely, as he slammed his shield across Kang's face, cracking the purple helmet and bloodying the villain's nose.

Huh. Apparently his skin _was _blue. And it was a bright blue too, like bubblegum ice cream.

"Status!" Steve demanded.

"_I'm in the rafters," _came Natasha's voice. _"I think the others got locked up, though." _

"Figure out how to get them out," Steve ordered, voice low as he brought his shield screaming across the villain's blue face again. "I'll keep him busy until then. And once everyone's free, attack as a group, everyone at once. He's powerful, but now that he's underestimating us and just playing with us, we should be able to surprise him."

"_Roger that."_

The Avengers knew what they were up against, now.

Kang, on the other hand, had absolutely no idea. They would win this.

Steve just had to keep Kang distracted a little bit longer. Kang seemed to be finding their confrontation amusing, though, and wasn't trying too hard.

"Hrmmm," Kang said thoughtfully, even as Steve slugged him in the jaw with everything he had, knocking the larger man right off his feet. "There's something _about _you, flag man."

Blood was leaking from Kang's nose, and he sniffed.

"Oh! That's it," he said, smirking toothily in realization. "You're not from here either. I'd place you at about—what?" He sniffed again. "Mid-century? 1940S, perhaps?"

Captain America came at him, kicking him in the knee and simultaneously slamming his shield into that ridiculously purple helmet.

Kang wiped the blood from his blue nose with a ridiculously purple glove. He was grinning sadistically. "My, they had _spirit _back then, didn't th—"

He was cut off by Steve kneeing him hard in the crotch, and when he gave a grunt of pain and doubled over, that vibranium shield came blurring down to slam the back of his head.

Sparks of blue energy leapt from Kang's eyes, as he looked up and bared his teeth in anger. "You insufferable. Little._ Gnat." _he ground out, finally angry.

"_Captain! We're coming!" _came Natasha's voice over Steve's comlink. _"Just hang in there!" _

But Kang was standing up, energy pulsing at his fingertips.

"Bego—" Kang started, only to be cut off as the Captain launched himself at the time traveler, tackling him to the ground.

As he did so, Kang's glowing armor went off with a flash, enveloping the both of them.

And then they were gone.

* * *

The rest of the Avengers had entered the chamber just in time to see Steve tackle the villain and the two of them disappear in a blinding flash of white-blue light.

"NO!" Tony shouted, shooting over to the spot where they'd been. "No no no no no no no..."

The others were there right behind them, horror and desperation and grief written all over their features.

There were a few moments where they all just stood there, as if waiting for Cap and the Kang dude to reappear again.

"He's gone, isn't he?" Clint asked. His voice sounded dead, even in his own ears.

There were a few dark drops of Kang's blood on the metal. A dent in the wall from where Steve had thrown the villain into it.

"Yeah," Tony said, his Iron Man mask failing to conceal the tremble in his voice. "Yeah, he is. The time traveling device was ingrained in Kang's suit, so... they could be anywhere, anytime, and there's nothing we can do about it."

The Hulk roared.

Thor stood stiffly, jaw set.

Natasha placed a hand on Clint's arm.

"Nothing?" she asked Tony.

Iron Man's faceplate was an emotionless mask, but she swore she could see Tony's face crumple behind it. "Nothing."

* * *

Steve was falling.

He'd latched onto Kang and there was a blinding flash of light, energy that washed over him and seared like he was being drenched in liquid nitrogen, and then there was a moment of falling through heavy and absolute darkness, and the only thought he could form was _oh God I'm dying I'm dying I'm going to see Bucky again... _

And then there was the soft touch of cold moonlight on his skin and rushing wind and he became aware of the fact that he was still holding onto Kang and that they were _really _falling.

Cement was rushing up at them, and Steve was on top of Kang as they impacted, and he heard the villain's neck snap with audible _crack. _

Steve got up, glancing about the dark alley they were in. He looked back down at Kang's dead body.

That just left the problem of, when was now and where the hell was he?

He stepped out of the alley onto the sidewalk, and when he saw the people, the buildings, the propaganda signs, his blue eyes went wide.

He was still right outside Washington, where they'd attacked Kang.

Only that it was Washington as he remembered it from World War II.

He was back in the 1940s. And he was stuck there—stuck where Bucky was still alive.

Steve smiled.

It was dark and there weren't many people out, so it was easy for Steve to slip unnoticed through the darkness, even in his garish red, white and blue outfit.

First order of business: _exactly_ _when _was he?

That problem was fixed when he found a copy of the daily newspaper.

It was 1945, only a week after Steve crashed the Red Skull's plane into the Arctic.

Hope leapt like a jump-started care engine inside his chest. The dead weight that had been his heart for the last few months started beating again, lighting up his eyes with a ferocious determination.

He needed to save Bucky. Oh, God, he _could _save Bucky, he realized, and his bones had never felt so light. Like he could walk on water. Like he could fly.

When he ducked back into the alley, he knelt by the body of the blue-skinned man in his ridiculously vibrant purple and green costume, searching his belt for the time travel device.

He found it. It was small and fit into his hand, a little programmable box. He stared at for a moment, face conflicted, before his expression settled in determination and he clenched his hand around it, crushing it. Dropping it to the ground, he crushed it beneath the heal of his boot.

Now he could save Bucky before he was ever brainwashed into the Winter Soldier, could save him from all that pain and abuse, from ever being turned into a weapon and then killing himself because he couldn't live with what he'd done.

Steve could rescue his best friend, and then the two of them could take down Hydra before it had a chance to corrupt Shield.

Steve could save so many people in the future. (So what if he altered the timestream? He wasn't messing it up, he was _fixing _it.)

And maybe he could still make that date with Peggy.

First though, he needed to get to Germany. (And he needed to dispose of Kang's body.)

Which was quicker said than done. It was easy enough to commandeer a jet from the local military base and take off before anyone was the wiser, and he knew how to fly it (and he could dump Kang's body in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean).

It just took time, and the jet was so _slow _compared to the flying vehicles of the twenty-first century. Steve had been spoiled by his time with the Avengers, truly.

But every mile closer Steve got to saving Bucky, the warmer his heart got, till it felt like it was a blazing mass of star plasma in his chest, that would burn through his ribs and flesh at any moment.

Steve bit his lower lip so hard his mouth filled with the thick, warm tang of copper.

* * *

_Everything hurt. _Hurt like hell. He was in hell, he must be.

When he managed to open his eyes again, the world was still swimming in his vision, his mind was hazy with pain and it hurt it hurt it _hurt _where the hell was he what was happening to him—who was he? _Who was he?! _

_(Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 3-2-5-5-7-0-3-8, _a voice in his head informed him. _Your friends call you Bucky.)_

Bucky. Yes—he was Bucky. _He was. _They couldn't take his name from him. They hadn't broken him.

He latched onto that thought: he wasn't broken.

A face in his vision, familiar—_Zola_—fear and hatred rose like bile in Bucky's throat and turned his blurry vision red and no no _no _he was strapped to a cold table again, _not again_.

"You will be the new fist of Hydra," the mad scientist said, and Bucky was _panicking_.

How did he get here? He remembered—Steve, falling, ice, snow, white-hot _pain, _snowflakes fluttering from a blue sky towards his eyelids and blackbirds everywhere, and he was being dragged and he couldn't feel his arm and there was red blood and red and white and blue and then darkness and _agony _and screams ripping from his throat as they _sawed his arm off _and he watched it he watched them saw his arm off and he screamed and screamed till his voice gave out and he finally sunk back into merciful unconsciousness.

People in white lab coats hovered over him like vultures over a piece of carrion.

And he must be going crazy, because he thought he could feel his arm, but it wasn't there he'd watched them saw it off—but he tried to lift his hand, just to see, and something _moved _and there was an arm and a hand in his vision but it wasn't _his, _it was all shiny and made of metal and it hurt his eyes and _oh God what had they done to him?! _

A scientist leaned closer, and _NO _Bucky thought, reaching out with his new hand that wasn't his but moved on his command, and he tightened it around the scientist's throat but he couldn't _feel _it tightening, could just see the doctor clawing at it uselessly as their face started turning blue, and suddenly all the people in white coats were descending on him, and he was desperately trying to get off the stupid fucking _cold _metal table, and how come there was no sensation of touch in his left arm even when he knew it was there but his entire left side was on _fire?_

He was on fire, it was freezing cold and he was on fire, and the scientists were closing in to tear him apart, to open him up and poke him and prod him and see what made him tick and stick him with needles and fill his veins with _ice _and make him scream, scream, scream a symphony of agony and _no not again...! _

And then suddenly there was a whirring and something like blood and snow and sky was streaking through the air, and the people in white coats were dropping like flies, and Zola was screaming and then he stopped and Bucky hoped the man died.

His vision was still pulsating, shimmering like heat in the summer even though it was cold it was so _cold _and his blood was winter rivers, but there was someone else now who wasn't wearing snow, they were wearing sky, and he _couldn't get up—_except that the blurry sky figure was suddenly there and the straps that were holding Bucky down suddenly weren't, and he found himself looking into blue, blue eyes lined with dark lashes, and then he was being pulled against someone who was warm like sunlight but without the burning.

It was so dark where he was.

"Oh Bucky," a voice whispered into his ear, sounding choked up, and there seemed to be wetness trickling down his right shoulder, warm like blood, except thinner and it stung. "You're alive. You're _alive."_

"Who—" Bucky rasped, and his voice was quiet and broken and cadaverous as a moth with tattered wings that had tumbled to the ground and was trying in vain to flutter back into the air, only to fall again, upon stirring only a few particles of dust.

"It's Steve," the man in blue said, leaning back, and Bucky blinked at him, trying to make his vision stop wavering and get his brain to stop skipping around like a broken record. "It's going to be alright, I'm going to get you out of here."

After a moment though he was able to make out those summer-sky-blue eyes, straight nose, chiseled jaw and cheekbones, dark eyebrows and scruffy blondish hair, that thin upper lipper and fuller lower lip and those large ears that stuck out slightly.

"Steve," Bucky murmured. He remembered Steve.

Steve grinned at him, and Bucky momentarily forgot about how much his entire body _hurt. _

Momentarily. And he probably looked at least as bad as he felt, Bucky realized, if the concerned and pained expression that replaced Steve's smile was any indication.

"We really gotta stop meetin' like this," Bucky slurred weakly. God, even talking hurt. At least his brain seemed to be functioning again and things no longer looked blurry as if he were underwater. "This whole-me-gettin'-strapped-to-a-table-and-gettin'-experimented-on-and-you-havin'-ta-come-save-me-thing is gettin' old real fast."

Steve's lips twitched. "I couldn't agree more," he said. "But now we gotta get you out of here." Steve put an arm around Bucky's shoulders and another beneath his knees, lifting him up gently.

But even though Steve was being as careful as possible, Bucky still gave a pained gasp when waves of agony crashed over his body as his countless injuries were aggravated. Blackbirds filled his vision again.

"Sorry," Steve murmured (and there was so much weight and emotion behind the single word it felt as if it should collapse into a blackhole and inhale them into nothingness), as he began carrying Bucky out of the lab, stepping over the dead bodies that littered the floor.

Bucky hissed air out through his teeth, clenching his eyes closed. "S'okay," he moaned. "S'alright."

So, so many blackbirds, and Bucky's eyes closed as they dragged him under, his head lolling against Steve's muscled chest as he let the throb of pain throughout his head and entire body be drowned out by the steady beating of Steve's heart.

* * *

**THE END. **

**I really don't think I want to delve into the craziness of how this reality would be altered because of Steve messing up the timestream. I know he totally would, though, as evidenced by several comics I've read. I swear, Steve would do _anything, _to rescue Bucky, and he has absolutely no qualms about changing the past in order to create a better future. He doesn't really pay attention to the consequences tampering with the timestream might have. And I've also read some stuff that suggests that the supersoldier serum keeps Steve from ageing, so I didn't just make that up.  
**

**Anyways.  
**

**In Captain America 2, I think the board on Bucky in the Captain America exhibit said Bucky lived from 1917-1944, but in the comics Bucky and Steve were K.I.A (or M.I.A or whatever XD) in 1945 near the end of the war, so I'm just went with that.**

**For the fight scene with Kang I stole quite a bit of dialogue from the comic "Captain America: Man Out Of Time" by Waid and Molina, which was a huge inspiration for this fic, and I basically took that entire scene from the comic, except that I changed the fighting a little bit (different Avengers) and I changed what happened with the whole Steve-getting-sent-back-in-time-thing. And I also killed Kang, which did not happen in the comic. I highly suggest reading the comic though - it deals with Steve after he's first thawed from the ice, and it's heartbreaking.  
**

**Obviously, I got the title for this fic from that comic as well. **

**(And I'm sorry if I'm rambling, I've been awake for almost 22 hours now after only 3 hours of sleep, so I'm feeling a little bit loopy XD)**

**I was trying to make this fic feels-y, but frankly I've been working on it for hours and staring at it so long and all I feel is numb, so I have absolutely no clue if I succeeded or not... so I'd love to hear your thoughts! Any feelings?  
**


End file.
